Thongchai Jaidee will celebrate his 47th birthday next week but you would never know it by the way he’s playing at the 100th French Open.
Jaidee, the former paratrooper from Thailand, is eight under and two up on Rory McIlroy and Jeunghun Wang at Le Golf National after 54 holes. He shot 68 on Saturday to get to eight-under par.
But he may have to worry about McIlroy, who will go into Sunday with a lot of momentum.
For half the round, it looked as though McIlroy would totally play himself out of contention. He started with a double-bogey on the first hole and three bogeys and a birdie later, made the turn in 40. He was seemingly out of it and had most questioning the swing changes he is undertaking.
On the back nine, everything started to click. He came home with five birdies to salvage a 70 out of a day that seemed lost. “You saw two ends of the spectrum there,” McIlroy said after his up-and-down day. “On the front nine there was nothing fluid. On the back nine it went the best way it could. If I can just concentrate on the good stuff tonight and try to replicate that back nine throughout the whole 18 tomorrow, I should be okay.”
If he can replicate everything that clicked on the back nine, he should be more than “okay.”
